In this week's guitar lesson, you'll have a jam session with yourself by playing both the "call" and "response" parts of this acoustic blues shuffle composition. This isn't your typical 1, 4, 5 chord progression. You'll learn how to alternate between the 1 and the 5 chord, which is relatively easy to do and sounds great. … [Read more...]
One Chord Blues Guitar Lesson – Improvise Over a Single Chord – EP230
In this week's guitar lesson, you won't have to worry about playing chord changes ... because there aren't any. This jam track has a single chord (E) played over and over again. It'll be your job to play something colorful on top of a single chord to keep things interesting. This lesson is designed to teach you how to improvise over a single chord by giving you a series of licks and different chord voicings. … [Read more...]
Western Swing Style Melodic Lead – Playing The Chord Changes – EP229
In this week's guitar lesson, I'll show you how to create melodic sounding solos by targeting chord tones when improvising. You'll be "playing the chord changes" which means changing scales to match each chord change. Most of the notes you'll be learning are pulled directly from chord shapes (not scales) which makes it easy to visualize where you can play on the neck. … [Read more...]
3 Essential Chord Shapes on the Guitar – Chord Inversions – EP199
In this guitar lesson, you are going to learn 3 triad chord shapes (a triad means just 3 notes). I'll show you how to play these chord shapes up the neck of the guitar and how to play a 1, 4, 5 chord progression with them. You can use them both in rhythm playing and when playing lead. This lesson contains both a rhythm pattern, and a lead - which is created by adding embellishments to the chord shapes. This lesson is a MUST learn! … [Read more...]
Slow Blues Lead Over a Minor Progression – EP153
In this blues guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a slowly bluesy lead over an A minor chord progression. I play through the progression 3 times, each time introducing something new. The first time through, I'll show you how to pick the notes out of the chords, the 2nd and 3rd time I'll play a blues lead in the minor pentatonic scale, playing a higher position on the neck each time. Make sure to download the MP3 jam track to practice timing. … [Read more...]
Improvising On The Guitar – How It’s Done
One topic I get lots of questions on is around improvising on the guitar. How does it work? Do you really just make it up on the spot? How do you know where to start? and the list goes on and on. I thought I’d take a few minutes and make an analogy that will hopefully help put things into perspective and help some of you connect the dots on the topic of improvising on the guitar (or any other instrument). Music is a language (no really!) I’m sure you’ve heard many of the phrases around the … [Read more...]
Part 2 of 2: How to Improvise (Jam) on Guitar When Playing Lead – EP100
This lesson is a follow-up to EP099 How To Jam (Improvise) On The Guitar (Part 1), so be sure to watch that if you haven't already. This lesson provides you with an additional 8 bars worth of licks so you can now combine these 2 lessons together (EP099 and EP100) and have a decent jam session with the jam track (or with another musician). I've included a bonus version for Premium members that show's you how to play this style with no accompaniment - just a single guitar. I've included the … [Read more...]
Part 1 of 2: How to Jam (Improvise) on Guitar When Playing Lead – EP099
One of the most common emails I get from folks that are learning to play the guitar is, “Ok, so I know my chords and scales… now what?” There seems to be a mental ceiling that we all hit at some point and knowing how to improvise is a big one. In this lesson, I’ll go over the technique used in changing scales as the chords change, and show you the minor and major pentatonic boundaries that you can work with for each chord. This is part 1 of a 2 part mini series on how to jam. … [Read more...]
